


Smitten

by bourbonandbitter



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Dirty Talk, Dominant Aziraphale (Good Omens), M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Post-Canon, Self-Indulgent, Submissive Crowley (Good Omens), Verbal Humiliation, pain slut Crowley, porn with footnotes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-04-12 11:22:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19131019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bourbonandbitter/pseuds/bourbonandbitter
Summary: Crowley wiles.  Aziraphale thwarts.  That's how Crowley likes it.Please read the tags.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Adults! BDSM can be physically, emotionally, and psychologically dangerous. Play safe, sane and consensual with your favourite people.
> 
> The author would like to join the demon Crowley in dedicating this fic to John Donne, a man who knew what it means to love the divine.

Crowley is strappadoed in the middle of the bookshop when it hits him.

It’s not the shoulder-displacing Spanish Inquisition strappado, but, in fact, something closer to the original, invented for the very purpose it is now serving.  A web of black rope runs around the trusses of his arms and shoulders and up to a ring in the ceiling that no one could have installed and will not be there tomorrow.  His black silk briefs are stuffed into his mouth. [1]   Aziraphale has left him to hang naked like this, half bent-over, wobbling on his toes, while he inventories the poetry section.

But something has occurred to Crowley, and it can’t wait however long Aziraphale plans to let him stew, so he bucks in the ropes and yells his angel’s name around the gag.  He must sound as panicked as he feels, because Aziraphale is there right away, pulling Crowley’s pants out from between his lips and murmuring consolation.

“Uncomfortable, my dear?  Do you want a break?”

Crowley glares; it’s his default response, even in foreplay.  “ _No_ , angel -- it’s you.  I mean, is this -- am I _tempting_ you?”

His angel laughs, running fingers down Crowley’s back and over his ass.  “Yes, you do look very tempting like this."  Crowley ignores him, although up until recently he'd have included the comment in his mid-year evaluation.

“Am I -- is this -?”  The urgency he feels -- the wrong kind of urgency for the situation, unfortunately -- swallows up his words, but he knows Aziraphale understands.  He’s got to.

“Crowley.”  Aziraphale kisses him.  “My dear, is that all you’re worried about?  Would you like some water?  You're still hard, anyway.”  He gives Crowley's dick a little tug.

Crowley makes what he fears is an endearingly conflicted face.  “Aren’t you -- you know -- worried?  About?”

Aziraphale slides a loving hand down his cheek, and Crowley nuzzles, breathing in the scent of his angel, aether and old parchment and the new cologne his barber had recommended. [2]

“No, my dear, I am not _worried_ in the slightest.  Shall I tell you why?”

Crowley nods; he’s not relaxing yet, but he knows one way of keeping control over the unknown.  He tries to project nonchalance.  “Uh -- carry on, then, angel.”  He jerks his head towards the pile of ropes against a bookshelf, although he can’t turn his neck far enough to see it.

But for now Aziraphale satisfies himself with running hands all over Crowley’s body, twyning in his hair, pinching a nipple.  “My dear,” he begins disinterestedly, “I’ve been aware of a certain tendency of yours for a very long time.”

Crowley rolls his eyes.  “Not long enough.”  He garners a slap on the ass for the comment and counts it a win.

“It was all our work with that African chap, Augustine.  You remember -- bit of an overthinker.”

Crowley nods, although that doesn’t communicate much given the position he's in.  “Tempt the right kid to steal a few pears, and he’ll feel guilty about it for years. [3]  If I’d got him on the wrong path, or even convinced him to live quietly in a navel-gazing commune-”

Augustine also came up with a great idea about what to do in a church that Crowley has kept in mind -- has fantasised about -- ever since, but that will have to wait.  Aziraphale knows what happens to Crowley on consecrated ground, and he isn’t inclined to inflict that much pain on him.  Not yet, at least, but Crowley has a twisted kind of hope.

“But you failed.”  Aziraphale smirks; it looks good on him.  “I thwarted you with a children’s game.  Do you remember what you said that day?”

“That it would hardly make up for all his years in that cult you started?” [4]  Crowley attempts.  This time the swat to his ass is much harder and comes from a strap.  He hangs his head in defeat and wiggles his ass for his angel.  The voice that escapes him mingles surrender and desire.  “That I had never been so humiliated.”

He regretted saying that soon enough, and thank -- well, you know -- it didn’t get back to Downstairs.  _Someone_ leaked Original Sin to Augustine, though.  That unearned commendation took a thousand years, but he got it in the end.

“You liked it,” says Aziraphale, circling him with deliberate steps.  “Quite a strange feeling it gave you, as far as I could tell.  The next time I thwarted you, I called you -- what was it?”

“Concupiscent serpent,” Crowley supplies with a shiver.  It made [5] him dizzyingly warm down to his toes, and at least halfway back up again.  That one was Augustine, too.

“And then lascivious beast, [6] and then foul tempter of the pit. [7]  And in very short order I found that your wiles had become much more obvious and much easier to thwart.”

Crowley winces.  Was he that obvious?  But he was that eager.

“Well.”  Aziraphale disappears from his view.  “Do you need a break?”

“Angel,” Crowley growls, “if we don’t get on with it, you’re going to need a drop cloth for your Byzantine codices.”

Aziraphale laughs and grabs him by the nose and chin.  Crowley distends his jaw to accept the oversized black ball gag, which settles nicely behind his fangs.  He tries it out, making a satisfying _mmph_ noise.  Meanwhile, Aziraphale bends one of his legs at the knee and begins tying calf to thigh with white rope.  They've tried out different colour combinations, and Aziraphale seems to like using white along with the black, as though he's marking his demonic lover.

“I’m afraid I didn’t get to do much thwarting living in London since your wiles were, alas, minor.  But, as you recall, that day in St. James’ Park-”

Crowley remembers, even though -- thank someone -- they've had many days in St. James’ Park together.  Living in unprecedented proximity to each other, they began to throw around miracles casually -- a tipped-over rubbish bin here, a badly-needed five pound note there.  Crowley had waved one hand to snap a bicycle chain when Aziraphale caught his wrist in a surprisingly firm grip.  Crowley found his protest cut off by thwarting blue eyes.

“Not today, damnèd beast -- I believe that’s what I said.”

Crowley grunts, sliding his hips slowly up and down.  Following a bit of careful wiling, the angel bent him over the bonnet of the Bentley and -- well, it wasn’t very angelic.  But Crowley knows all this.

Aziraphale ties off his leg and finishes by strapping the sole of his foot, provoking an enthusiastic moan.

“Once I understood what you wanted from me,” Aziraphale says gently, looping more white rope around his neck, “you became easy to deal with.  Predictable.  Even amenable.  In 1823 I tried telling you -- in a most disparaging voice -- that I was disappointed in you.”  He ties the neck rope to the rope around Crowley’s thigh, pulling his head down further and increasing the strain on his shoulders.  “You disappeared for decades, and when you came back, you claimed you’d been _napping_.” [8]  Aziraphale chuckles, cups his jaw again, and Crowley hears himself whine.

"My dear boy, I fucked with you for centuries… until I saw you hopping around a church during the Blitz."

He loves rescuing his angel, but Aziraphale makes even this sound like a humiliation. [9]  Crowley grinds a bit even though there's nothing to grind against.  This is his favourite part of their shared history: the part when he finally starts getting everything he wants.  

His angel steps away and begins circling again, admiring his work.  Crowley is balanced on the ball of of one foot.  It’s a precarious position; he can hold it for days.

Later, Aziraphale will fuck him carefully in this posture; sometime after that, he’ll loosen the ropes and fuck him recklessly on the floor.

“I’ve known all these long centuries that your temptations were meant for me and not your human targets,” comes the measured voice from somewhere behind him, “and although I did very much enjoy it, I was, after all, thwarting the wiles of Hell by keeping you busy.  And you ask whether you’re tempting me?”

Crowley has a sinking feeling he knows where this is going.  He can feel his cock ready to burst. His eyes glow with lust.

Aziraphale has come back around to look down on him.  “Oh, no, my dear demon, this is not a temptation-”

Crowley cranes his neck, but all he can see is an angelic smile edged in cruelty.

“- this is a smiting.”

__________________________________

1 Otherwise, he is naked, because Crowley chooses to simply manifest his clothing. Yes, all his clothing.  
2 It was called Florida Water.  
3 You’d think that’d be Upstairs’ purview, but guilt can make you do the wrong thing -- run away from your loved ones, say, or overreact to the same fault in others. Not that Crowley would know anything about that.  
4 "A cosmopolitan religion," Aziraphale would protest in any other circumstance, "and you spend one evening unburdening your soul to the wrong Persian -!" A thousand years later, Languedoc is being torn apart, people calling themselves Perfect are marching confidently into bonfires, and suddenly France is a thing.  
5 And makes.  
6 Also Augustine.  
7 Not Augustine - even Crowley ran out of patience eventually.  
8 At the time, he suspected the demon had been abusing his carnal nature. Now that Aziraphale is the one abusing Crowley's carnal nature, he’s sure of it.  
9 The French Revolution -- now that was some good angel rescuing. If Aziraphale ever takes his nose out of a book long enough to develop some street smarts, Crowley's going to need a new hobby.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Aziraphale bent Crowley over the Bentley and did not-very-angelic things to him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you had "Crowley hisses" on your bingo card, congratulations!

Crowley turned, following the iron grip on his wrist.  There was an understated French cuff, a buff-on-white striped sleeve, a brocade-covered shoulder, and short curly hair that burned white-gold even on the other side of his dark glasses.  With some trepidation Crowley lifted his eyes still further and found a chilly blue gaze like the northern ocean on a sunny winter day.  Aziraphale held him with something like cruelty in his face, along with something else, something more obscure, something Crowley couldn't read.

"Not today, damnèd thing," he uttered, and Crowley both melted and dared to hope.

But he couldn’t make it easy, otherwise Aziraphale wouldn’t enjoy it, right, and he must be enjoying it, must get something out of this dance.  _Flawless cool_ , he reminded himself.  "Bit of an overreaction to a little wiling, isn’t it, angel, especially now that your side've got nothing on us?"

"Oh, my dear boy," Aziraphale murmured, "this is entirely for your sake."

Deep within Crowley, something began to uncoil.

Without letting up his grip, the angel led him back to the Bentley and nodded at the driver's seat.  "Drive, serpent."

Crowley could not hope, could not allow hope, not after six thousand years and the end of all things and a pillar of hellfire -- not hope, not knowing what fate had awaited Aziraphale, what could still await them if they let their guard down.  What a banquet he could lose, what a treasure.  He cleared his throat, hoping his voice wouldn't betray him.  "You had the Ritz in mind, angel?"

"What I have in mind, my dear, is giving you what you want.  What you've wanted from me for a very long time."

"What I _want_ , angel, is-"

_"Agent of lust."_

A hiss escaped him.  He hated himself for it, and he loved Aziraphale.

 _Go on, just give up_ , his mind taunted.  _Maybe he'll_ _have mercy and fuck you.  Maybe he'll have mercy and love you._

Trying to ignore the hardening on his thigh, he risked a sidelong glance at Aziraphale.  The angel stared straight ahead and his mouth was set in a harsh line, as though he were concentrating on a particularly complicated task.  He wasn't looking at Crowley, but if he did, there was no way he could fail to notice the bulge in his tight leather trousers.

He let out a long breath and drove as Aziraphale directed him -- _ordered_ him, thrilling him to his very core.  For the first time since he'd gotten his hands on an internal combustion engine, he didn't speed, because he wasn't really the one driving, was he, wasn't really in control, just following the road Aziraphale laid out in front of him, basking in the warm, heavy feeling of the angel's will over his.  Aziraphale led him out of London, traffic gently parting for them, motorways melting like chocolate on a hot day, until he drove on a narrow, disused country road.  Crowley obeyed -- _acquiesced, surrendered_ , his mind chanted -- pulling into a passing lane under the shade of a stand of trees, and then sat quietly, counting his shallow breaths.  He tried to remember where they were, how they'd gotten there, but the past minutes (hours?) slipped away, burned off by what he hoped for the immediate future.

Quietly, gravely, Aziraphale reached over to take Crowley's chin in his fingers.  He squeezed his eyes shut but could not shut out the angel's words: "I love you."  They burned like holy water, all light and heat.  Crowley couldn't stifle a hiss.

 _His eyes are on me now.  Look at him, you coward.  Look_ _at him and burn._

Pain in every pore, every nerve a bright ember.  "I can't," he breathed.  "Please."  He cradled the hand on his chin, dared only to open his eyes.  "Please don't stop."

The angel's face, almost impassive, took on a sheen of… was it pity?  And he pulled his hand away, stepping lightly out the passenger door.

Crowley listened to Aziraphale's steps, unable to focus his eyes.

The door beside him opened.  The angel filled his sight, vast, unknowable, a forbidden continent in a bespoke waistcoat.

"Out."

Crowley didn't move.

"Out, demon."

Crowley was used to wearing dark glasses, but something occluded his eyes as he stepped out of the Bentley.  Aziraphale was standing by the bonnet.

"Why now?" he asked, but it came out in a croak.

Aziraphale took his wrist again and pushed him, unresisting, down onto the Bentley, merciless against the hardness in his trousers.  "Keep your forearms on the bonnet."

"Angel," he begged.  

"Why now?" Aziraphale repeated.  "My dear fellow, simply because Heaven and Hell have no claim on us anymore."  He leaned in, pressing his lips against Crowley's ear.  "There is no one to protect you from me."

Crowley hissed, only realising after it had escaped him that what he'd said was _yess_.  A small sun of lust rose in his core and filled his entire body.  The angel's hands were around his waist, unfastening his trousers and lifting his hips to pull them down around his knees.  Crowley pressed his hard cock against the Bentley and rocked a little.  He heard the grass rustle as Aziraphale took a step back.

“My dear, it can be difficult for me to express myself to you.  For an angel to express himself to a demon.  Angelic love is -- harsh, I’m afraid, for those souls to whom grace is inaccessible."

All of which was to say Crowley was a pain slut.  It was all that had kept him going some years, an infinite source of energy by the grace of Hell.

"So when I call you a wicked thing, or tell you that demons are incapable of love, because I know it excites you, I am simply trying to communicate in a language that won’t hurt -- won't harm you.  Inauthentic pain for real love.”

There was silence for a long time.  _Isn't he going to touch me?  Has he left me here?_ Crowley began to crane his neck to look behind him when he felt gentle fingers wrapping in his hair and inexorably forcing him back down, knocking his dark glasses askew.  He took in an involuntary gasp of air against the shiny black bonnet.

"How long have you wanted this?"

"Since -- since the beginning," he mumbled.  "Near 'nough. Got taken away from y'r light… couldn't stop thinking about you.  _Angel_ ," he hissed.  "Adversary."

"Adversary," Aziraphale agreed.  "Tempter."  This elicited another groan from deep in Crowley's throat.  "Answer the question.  How long have you wanted me to humiliate you, to fuck you?  Answer, root of evil."

"Ssssso long!"  He wiggled his hips desperately.  _If this goes on any longer..._ "Want you."

"Yes," Aziraphale sighed, touching his bare ass at last with gentle strokes, the other hand firm on Crowley's neck, "I know.  I've known for a long time, serpent, and I've used you.  Used what I know against you, thwarted your wicked wiles.  So how long, unredeemèd beast?"

Crowley quivered.  "Macedon," he admitted.  They'd been good times for him, fear and envy spilling into subtle and brutal machinations; best of all, that's when he'd started to notice that what humans came up with on their own was so much better than the plotting of Hell.  "The court of Alexander." It had given him time to notice, to react, to begin to really inhabit his body, not just wear it.  He'd noticed his body's reaction to one thing in particular.

"To do good," the angel mused, "in a tangle of lust and pain is a difficult path to tread.  Protect a child, and she grows up to be a poisoner.  Free a slave, and he leads an army that destroys the innocent."

"Yess," Crowley hissed, "your colours started to change, didn't they?"

Aziraphale's body slammed into him, pressing Crowley's hardness painfully into the Bentley.

"You can't deny it," he panted.  "Humanity changed you.  All that free will.  Made you darker.  Compromised.  More like usss."

It was hardly true.  He'd glimpsed the angel for short, aching seconds, a brilliant light and fearsome protector of the many vulnerable humans, the many victims trailing Crowley's wake.

He didn't get the response he expected; instead, a murmuring at his ear again.  "My dear, you have such exquisite fantasies.  Thwarted by an infernal angel, is that how it goes?"  He could feel Aziraphale's hard cock on his thigh, and all he could say was _yesss_.

The angel's weight lifted from his body, and Crowley felt gentle hands spreading his ass cheeks.  His breathing came short and ragged as a thumb circled his hole, a finger dipped inside.  _Yess_ _, yesss, angel, now_.  How long had he waited?  How long since he'd dared to hope?  Hope, that dangerous virtue, that destroyer of nihilism, that door to longing.  He'd lost track of how much of Aziraphale's manicured hand was inside him.  He rutted against the car. _Shameless.  Shameless_ _serpent.  Enemy._

"Tell me," the angel insisted.  Crowley searched for his voice and found it moaning in his throat.

"Inna temple," he sighed.  _Which one, which bloody temple?_  "Templ'a Zeus."  That was wrong.  He could see the great painted statue in his memory.  "'f Serapis."

"Good," Aziraphale said.  Curling, stretching.

 _He remembers it too, the smug bastard.  He's just waiting to hear it from me._ Crowley could imagine the look on the angel's face, because it's the one he himself practiced in a mirror for hours before taking Aziraphale's place Upstairs.

"'s'a trap."  He had to push the words out of his throat, because it wanted to scream.  "Good trap. Getta commendation f'r violatin' sanctuary."

Soft fingers pushed him from the inside.  "You had arranged a murder, my dear."

"Not arranged," Crowley protested.  "Did it themselves.  Almost all of it.  Di'n't need help fr'm me hardly 'all."

He felt fingers withdraw from inside him, and smooth nails traced a path to the other side of him.  Crowley gasped, squirmed onto one side, whined.  "Angel."

"Go on."

It took some time to get his breath under control enough to speak.  "You were there."

Aziraphale sounded amused.  "I know, dear."

Crowley laid his face on the cool metal of the Bentley and began to drift away.  "You stopped me."  He rocked slowly on his hard cock.  "Stopped me with a sword."

"I had no intention of using it."  The angel sounded a little embarrassed, like he'd been caught with an error on his shop inventory.

 _Stupid angel._  "Liked it," he told the Bentley.  "Liked you."

Finally, finally, he felt the tip of Aziraphale's cock at his entrance, made slick by something he couldn't see.  

"I believe, my dear, that I bent you over the bomos."

"Not far en-uhhh-"  The angel slid inside him, and Crowley held back his orgasm with a great act of will as Aziraphale pumped slowly.  " _Yesss_ , angel."

"You agent of carnal lust," Aziraphale said fondly, "is this what you wanted, then and ever since?"  He thrust a bit harder and stifled a moan.  Crowley nearly wept.

He could feel Aziraphale's balls brush against his thighs.  The thrusts came faster now, deeper, more confident.

"Yesss, yesss, then and now and forever, _please_."

Aziraphale's hands came under his chest to lift him up just enough that the angel could grasp his cock.  Crowley kept his forearms devotedly on the bonnet as his angel stroked him in time with his thrusting.

"And this is what you want from me, to fuck you mercilessly over your own car until your prick is milked dry?"

Crowley bobbed his head a bit harder than necessary, a scream knotted in his throat.

The angel thrust violently.  "And does it hurt, getting everything you want, demon?"

And then the scream was free from his throat, and Crowley was free, and he shed seed, overflowing the angel's hand and spilling onto the shiny black bonnet beneath him.  Aziraphale thrust a few more times or for an eternity, like the right bastard he could be [1], before coming loose inside him with a carnal grunt and collapsing on top.  Crowley realised his black silk shirt was covered in his own semen.  The thought made him painfully ready to start again.

Aziraphale pulled out of him, eliciting a whine, and rolled over to lean against the Bentley.  Gentle arms caught Crowley around the hips and pulled him into his angel's embrace.  They were quiet for a long time before Aziraphale squeezed his waist and spoke into his shoulder.  "Was that something like what you had in mind, my dear?"

Crowley leaned back so he could rub their cheeks together.

"Something like-" he began smartly, but Aziraphale nipped at his neck.

"Don't be a brat, or I'll be much harsher on you next time."

"Next time, yeah," Crowley echoed, trying to convince his eyes to focus.  "Harsher, right."

"Please," his angel whispered then.  "Please tell me you know that I -- you understand how I feel about you."

Crowley closed his eyes and breathed deeply through a throat suddenly gone tight.  Instead of responding, he nodded shakily and searched for words.

"How-?"  He shivered.  Aziraphale wrapped both arms around his chest.  "How did you find out?"

"You may have been the most canny creature in the Garden, my dear, but in some domains you lack subtlety."

"Did you mean what you said?  About no Hell or Heaven…"

"Not that you need protection from me.  I thought…"  His angel shifted uncomfortably, raising a wicked glee in Crowley's depths.  "I said that to turn you on."  The phrase sounded surreal on Aziraphale's prim lips.  "I thought it rather successful, too.  But that they no longer have a claim on us -- yes."  He turned his face to Crowley's.  The demon dropped his head back to accept the kiss, and all that would come in the future.  "They have no claim on us," Aziraphale repeated.  "You and I only can claim each other, and claim the world, for ourselves, forever."

 

1 Mostly when Crowley was around to admire it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A demon beloved of an angel is a demon inclined toward pain. Aziraphale thinks he can make that work for both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is getting a bit out of hand, so here's a couple scenes strung together. I expect to have the final chapter, plus an epilogue, up by the end of next week.
> 
> Change of POV and back to present tense.
> 
> Minor edits to previous chapters.

"On the altar," says Crowley.

Aziraphale, who's just taken a sip of wine, swallows the wrong way and promptly returns the contents to his glass for a do-over.

"In the porch," he says.  Surely that's plenty of danger for Crowley, being so public.

"Inside the _sanctuary_."

Aziraphale sighs.  "In the nave, then.  Behind a… a pillar or some such barrier.  And not in a Roman church. Not with holy water lying about."

He watches Crowley's lust fight with his sense of self-preservation and is relieved to see things haven't gotten too out of hand these past few months.  

"But it has to be one of those gothic jobs.  Presbyterian or bad old C of E or something."

"But my dear," Aziraphale says for the tenth time, "why not a deconsecrated church, an art centre or something of the sort?"

Crowley is silent for a moment; in the end, he leers enthusiastically but doesn't say what Aziraphale half-feared.  "Because we wouldn't be desecrating it if it were already deconsecrated, would we, angel?"

Crowley seems to think it a bit of a lark, no more dangerous than urinating through open church doors on a summer day, watching his piss evaporate right before it hits holy ground.  But it's dangerous for both of them. Aziraphale tries to tell himself it's only Crowley's pleasure he pursues, and finds himself unconvincing.

A synagogue would draw Michael's attention; a mosque, Gabriel's.  Crowley rather liked the Buddha and made minimal inroads in India, too busy basking in the heat until he was forcibly reassigned by Below.  Atheist meeting places are, of course, unconsecrated, although Crowley loves taking the piss out of hyper-rational types, as he puts it.  Aziraphale suggested a neo-pagan circle of some kind, but Crowley insisted that if they weren't already nonstop orgies, he didn't want anything to do with them. [1]

A church is long since removed from the Galilean carpenter-rabbi and his subversive message of kindness, and so a church it must be.

He takes a proper sip this time and fixes his demon with a shy smile.  "Well, my dear, it seems I must brace myself.  What's the next fantasy to come out of your deranged libido?"

Crowley, his Crowley, who's clung to him with his devotion and his perversion for centuries.  Crowley, who can endure any pain but his straightforward love.

Crowley, who wants to be mercilessly fucked in a church.

"What, already sure you can satisfy this one, angel?  You became voracious so gradually, I'll bet Upstairs hasn't even noticed yet."

Crowley, so desperate for attention, so desperate to be loved.

Not every love-making between them is without mercy, of course.  Aziraphale couldn't handle that.  But he sees how Crowley responds, how he seems to relax [2] when Aziraphale casts certain aspersions, and he knows his lover feels safe within the boundaries of his control.  And he likes it, likes making Crowley feel good, likes ripping orgasms from his slim body, watching those golden eyes slide back into his head as his body explodes in pleasure.  If he has to cause a certain amount of pain -- physical, emotional -- it’s a part of the pact that simply cannot be avoided, given their respective natures.  And it's exactly what Crowley has been asking for, usually in so many words, over the centuries.  And, well, Crowley _likes_ it, damnit, and Aziraphale likes it when Crowley likes things.

So it has to be a church.  Not just because Crowley wants it, but because Aziraphale needs to know.

"Oh, I don't see the difficulty," he says airily, trying to wear his lover’s nonchalance like a borrowed jacket.  "I've a few locations in mind. Quiet, private chapels.  Bit of an off-season -- you're lucky there."

"Luck's got nothing to do with it.  You've been putting me off for months."

He tries out the cruel smile this time, the one he's been working on, the one he privately calls the Ecstasy of St. Teresa smile.  "You didn't seem to mind when it meant being taken on every stick of furniture in your flat."

Crowley makes a little moan, a wile by which Aziraphale refuses to be tempted.

"Give me a few weeks to _case the joint_ first," he continues, overpronouncing the colloquialism and enjoying the notion he's in a spy movie.

Crowley groans, this time in a way that tells him he should be mortified for it.  "I told you, what’s the point of that?  We can just… lock ourselves in until we're done."

Aziraphale frowns.  "Every second on consecrated ground will endanger you, will hurt you-"

"The pain is the _point_ , angel."

And there it is.

Aziraphale sniffs.  "It will likely be most unpleasant, and I'll end up having to carry you -- well-fucked and mildly scorched -- home for _digestifs_."

Just how much leeway will Above give him before they respond with force?  It’s something he needs to know for himself if he's going to be living Down Here, on Our Side.  And so he lets himself be tempted, as he has so many times before, into doing something Crowley would quite like him to do.

His demon is glowering through dark glasses that obscure his eyes from every angle.  "Oh, I trust I can make it _pleasant_ enough for you, angel, and once we're out of the church, I'll heal up enough to drive."

"Good," Aziraphale snaps, "then I won't have to transport you tied up in the boot of your car."

Crowley's eyes glaze over.  

It’s then that Aziraphale decides to pursue his experiment.  Crowley is slouched in an armchair, one leg hooked over the arm and the other splayed out in front of him, in a position that could only be comfortable for someone who has either no bones or a rather inhuman number of them.  He’s manifested a black silk shirt, short, flat-soled boots, and very tight trousers.  It seems to Aziraphale that his whole body hinges on an aggressively-placed pelvis.  He is sharp and shiny and beautiful and proud, and he is Aziraphale's demon.  Aziraphale smiles like St. Teresa’s angel again and speaks into his wine glass.

“I love you,” he says.

Crowley flinches, frowns.  “Angel, what the fuck are you-?”

Aziraphale summons all his passion, all his light and heat, like water roaring behind a dam.  Like diffused holy water, he knows, a great bloody mist of the stuff, a pea-soup fog of sacred pain.  He looks Crowley full in the face. “I love you.”

The demon’s braced for it this time, only letting a small hiss escape.  

Aziraphale rises to his feet and crosses over to the armchair, revelling in the depths of his emotion.  Crowley makes a good attempt at glowering, but he’s lost control and it shows.

“I love you.”

The demon whines and unclenches a fist.  Aziraphale takes the dark glasses off his lover’s face and tosses them carelessly -- but precisely, don’t want to be knocking over any stemware -- onto the table.  He sits back on a useful [3] footstool and assesses the erect nipples under Crowley’s silk shirt, the emerging erection, the lower lip that doesn’t quite realise it’s quivering.  Beautiful, and willingly helpless.  There is pride mixed with his lust, he knows, but more than that, he would do anything to protect his demon, anything to keep him warm, make him smile.  “I love you,” he repeats softly, and he’s sure his heart is visibly glowing.

Crowley makes an _uhn_ noise, but those golden eyes meet his, warm with pain and dilated [4] from excitement.  Aziraphale allows himself to grasp the sharp chin.  Crowley is shaking but doesn’t move, pitched over the edge and ready to fall on command.

“I love you.”  

Crowley’s eyes contract without ever breaking contact as his whole body shudders and another little moan escapes.  Aziraphale finds himself smiling genuinely as Crowley’s erection twitches and jerks beneath his trousers.

He waits patiently while the demon finds his voice.

“Angel, are you gonna-”

“I love you.”  Crowley curls up a little into himself, gasping.  The pain must be intense now. It could use an adjunct, Aziraphale decides.

“Rather easier than I thought.  If I’d known centuries ago, I could have -- well, I’d have had more time to nip over to Qumran.  Could have filled out my proto-Masoretic scroll collection.”  He reaches out and tweaks a silk-covered nipple.  Crowley whimpers a bit from the back of his throat.  “Terribly easy, keeping you out of trouble.  Keeping you,” and he takes a long, lascivious look, enjoying the trembling under his hands, “pinned to a chair in my backroom, caring for nothing more than your own prick, quite obediently keeping your hands to yourself for once.”  Crowley thrusts his hips towards Aziraphale, like he’s offering a gift, satisfyingly engorged.  “Oh, that looks terribly uncomfortable.  I did spend several decades [5] trying to convince you those trousers were a sin, my dear.  It seems you need an object lesson.”

Crowley makes a sound like _nnnh_ and claws at the arms of the chair.

“I do love you,” Aziraphale murmurs, more affectionately than he’d planned.

The response is gratifying.  Crowley moans, tilting his parted lips up to the light.  There’s a sound of leather scrabbling on the seat cushion as the demon thrusts against his own trousers.

Aziraphale leans forward, a hand on each trembling wrist, his mouth descending close to Crowley’s ear.  The body beneath him rises in anticipation.  Aziraphale pauses, allowing his cruel smile to touch Crowley’s cheek, enjoying the feverish shivering he’s evoked. Then, with a feeling so wicked he may have Fallen twice over for it, he stands up and takes a step back.

Crowley’s protest is wordless, wild, abandoned.  He clutches the armchair and tries to lift himself up but doesn’t seem to have the strength, sinking back into the cushion and turning his face in trembling agony.

Aziraphale forces down a stirring of care, reaching out instead to cup Crowley’s cheek.  His demon nuzzles it desperately, meeting his eyes again, whining, all the while rutting helplessly.  “ _Please_ , angel.”

‘What pleases me, demon, is your suffering.”  He watches carefully.  Crowley’s eyes are slightly glazed but focus unwaveringly.  His hips roll in little waves.  “Your pain -- your endurance.  All at my mercy.”

And he can't help kissing the parted lips, the tongue that awakens at the taste of him, curling and darting into the warm nooks of his mouth. _Beautiful moment, do not pass away._

The sweetness of victory invades every part of him as he breaks the kiss.  Crowley's hands, he realises, are tangled around his neck, and he reaches up to replace them firmly on the arms of the chair.

Crowley begs -- hasn't stopped begging, even though there's nothing left that Aziraphale will deny him, never again.  “I’m burning, angel, _please_.”  

He nods reassuringly.  “I love you.”

And Crowley is keening and jack-knifing, and he can’t stop himself from touching his agonized demon, can’t resist running his hands over Crowley’s mitred cheekbones, the bas-relief waist and writhing hips, the hardness straining through leather, wetness seeping inexorably to the surface.  He presses a kiss to Crowley’s slack mouth, rides the suffering body.

“I love you.”  The leather-encased prick convulses under Aziraphale's thigh.  He catches his demon in his arms, holds him as he shakes, until wetness begins to seep through the tight trousers, until the carved marble body finally goes limp.

Crowley knots his fingers in Aziraphale’s hair and moans.  “Angel, you bastard. _They fight with our own weapons in this war,”_ he mumbles, _“they’re devils too, but in disguise.”_

 

1 Crowley, in fact, encouraged those occult shenanigans because he was annoyed at the heavenly hierarchy, annoyed enough to gum up the celestial lines with cold-call telemarketing prayers.  Aziraphale's thwarting (angels don't take revenge, even when they're quite annoyed and have just had their worst year-end evaluation in millennia) took decades of work and some rather unsettling research, but in the end he's quietly proud of the Satanic Temple.

2 And then get terrifically excited.

3 In that it's only there because he has a use for it.

4 Admittedly hard to tell with Crowley.

5 Over at least two centuries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa: https://images.app.goo.gl/TTH8TKesSZZ4EX2A9
> 
> Crowley quoting Faust Act V, the burial scene, is completely out of character and pure indulgence on my part.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And he's repeating it over and over, prays without ceasing: make speed to save me, make haste to help me, forgive, forgive.
> 
> But I am the one who needs your forgiveness, Aziraphale thinks. I'm the one who pushed you away -- for your own good, but still painfully, so painfully.
> 
> "This is your punishment," he tells his demon, tries to listen to himself. "This is your salvation."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> c/n: An angel and a demon fuck in a church. The demon gets lightly scorched. There's also rather more hair-pulling than is strictly called for. And I riff off the Latin mass.
> 
> If that's not your bag, see you at the epilogue.

As it turns out, Crowley isn't willing to let anyone else drive the Bentley [1], but he's clearly filed the fantasy under Things To Have Done to Me.  Aziraphale is sure it's just a matter of time, so much so that he buys zip ties and duct tape.

The church -- it's a chapel, really, attached to a picturesque if historically mediocre manor house -- looms tall and narrow in the early morning gloom.  Aziraphale, leading his demon by the hand, pushes open the heavy wooden door.  An inconvenient deadbolt briefly forgets to exist before snapping back into place behind them.

He looks back anxiously as they enter the nave.  Crowley gives a brief, pained hiss but squeezes his hand reassuringly.  Stained glass reflects off the demon's glasses, shining like jewels against a pale face just starting to perspire.  Slowly, cautiously, as with a wild animal, Aziraphale leads his demon to a carved stone column, the site of their assignation.

Soon he'll know for sure.

A few short weeks after the world declined to end, his shop bell rang, and there was Sandalphon standing at the counter, looking like he had a divine migraine.

The archangel waved a fleshy hand as he began his declamation."Fear not, Aziraphale, for I bring you good tidings, you and your… the demon Crowley."

_Boyfriend in the dark glasses,_ Aziraphale remembered, followed by a fist to his gut.  But good tidings -- those came from On High, not often, somewhere between the very rare Proclaim and the not uncommon Behold.

Sandalphon grimaced as though his good news left a bad taste.  "Good tidings run as follows: You -- that is, the two of you -- have loved much, and therefore much will be given you -- the two of you. [2]  Good tidings end.  And the interpretation thereof is this: Heaven will not interfere with the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley, and the curse of Heaven is on any agent of Hell who interferes with the same."

Aziraphale blinked a few times, wondering whether he could ask for that in writing.

"But Aziraphale-" and here the archangel smiled with grim satisfaction.  "Don't try it.  You'll burn him up.  Your pet demon will never have anything from you but pain."

And that was it, really.

Six thousand years.  Six thousand years they'd been on this earth together, slowly becoming closer, slowly wearing down their own defences.  Six thousand years over which he'd come to love Crowley, the little serpent who sheltered under his wing, the brittle adversary who couldn’t stand to see him let Above do the thinking for him, the occasional dinner companion who wouldn’t leave him alone.  Finally, finally, the friend who'd do anything, even minor miracles, given a winsome smile and a "my dear fellow."

And all for nothing but pain.  True, some of that pain, Aziraphale could see, was more meaningful to Crowley than any amount of gentleness.  But all the same, it created a barrier between them, Crowley always desiring, Aziraphale forever stifling desire.  It hadn't been fair, not to either of them, but especially not to Crowley.

Now that they were free, now that this last, stupid impediment was out of his way, he had so much to make up for.

And maybe he'd waited too long, repressed too much raw desire.  Maybe the centuries of pretense had wound too deeply around his love, because it wasn't pure; what came forth that afternoon was primal, dominating, even cruel.  It broke his heart to enjoy it.  But Crowley -- Crowley admitted everything, broke wide open beneath him, a gushing artery of pain and desire.

Holding his demon afterwards, under the dappled sun of Oxfordshire, he knew that Sandalphon was right -- there would be pain, perhaps only pain, but in it, his deep and eternal love written in a sonnet of humiliation, a language Crowley had learned fluently long ago.

He's insisted that Crowley wear real shoes, heavy work boots, and as the demon drops to his knees under the gothic arches, Aziraphale kicks an embroidered cushion under his knees.

"I'm fine," Crowley mutters, attending to the fly in front of him.  Aziraphale lets his awareness expand beyond and above the walls around him; no one is present in the building, although a few early tourists linger in the yard, taking selfies.

"Aziraphale."  The voice at his hip sounds amused.  "I need you to pay attention to me, not the sheep outside."  One eyebrow rises above the obscure lens.  "Unless you're into that."

He can feel himself blushing, and it's a good one, judging from Crowley's crooked leer.  "Of -- of course, my dear."  And the demon on his knees is so beautiful, hands still grasping his fly, lascivious mouth at the ready, hair like an ember in the darkened church, that he pauses just to watch, just to remember this moment for undying aeons.

"Angel!" Crowley barks.  "Abuse me!  Let's go."

Aziraphale takes a breath.  His old concern for Crowley haunting sacred places was never exaggerated; this could be dangerous, despite the efforts he’s taken to arrange safety and privacy for the scene.  He reaches down and pulls off Crowley's glasses, sliding them into the breast pocket of his coat.  Serpentine eyes blink and narrow uncertainly.

"There, that's perfect."  He bends down for a kiss, and it’s pure somehow, cleansing him of everything unstated, all the desperate love he can’t express, his lightly buried hopes.  “A beautiful sight, this,” and Crowley preens, soon to be servicing Aziraphale with his mouth, soon to be writhing on his prick.  A stab of fierce ownership pierces his heart: here is something to be protected, cherished, defended.  Now, now he wants the demon screaming his name, now he wants to open him up and bathe in the light of his lover’s beauty.

He can't quite stifle a gasp as Crowley takes him gently into his warm, soft mouth.  The demon wraps one hand around Aziraphale's hips, gripping his ass, massages his balls with delicate fingers.  Aziraphale presses his own hands into his demon's hair, leaning back against the stone column as Crowley begins to rock back and forth, taking his lips from the base of Aziraphale's shaft to the tip, twisting a little just under the head.  He writhes his hips slowly, carefully, makes a considerable effort to hold back his response.

Better to turn his attention again to what's going on around him.  The tourists are lingering near the sheep paddock but will head back to the manor tea shop for a full English, he's certain.  The chapel isn't staffed today.  They should be safe.

He bites his fist as Crowley's inhumanly long tongue winds underneath his head, hands clutching urgently at his ass.  _Think of Michael.  Michael doing paperwork.  Huge stacks of paperwork._

_Shoving stacks of paper to the floor with one sweep of his arm and having Crowley over his desk._

He can’t suppress a moan.  _Too much, too soon._ He tangles his fingers in red hair and pulls the demon back roughly.  A long line of spittle links his humming prick to the right corner of Crowley’s reddened lips.  Slowly, the forked tongue extends to lick first the bottom lip and then the top.  Aziraphale's heart leaps.

"Fuck my mouth," Crowley demands.

Aziraphale winches more hair around his fingers, and Crowley sinks down on his heels, panting.  "Deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man," Aziraphale sighs, mock-pious.

"Oh, I think you could deliver yourself, angel.  If you wanted to.”

“Evil speech.”  He places one careful foot on Crowley's groin, leaning in just a little, feeling the hardness under his sole that pulsates but does not diminish.  "After all this, do you think you can tempt me?  Do you think you have control?  Look around you, please.  I have you completely in my power."

Crowley hisses at him.

"Beg," he growls.

Crowley's first reaction, apparently, is to whine.  Aziraphale twists his fist cruelly in the demon's hair until the cries turn into words.

"Please!" Crowley pants.  "Please fuck me."

Aziraphale twists further.  _Someone knows, Heaven knows, I’m the one who should be suffering for him._

His voice is urgent with lust.  "Fuck -- fuck me!  Aziraphale, fuck me until I can't stand.  Make me _crawl_ on the burning floor.  Please!”

"I should leave you tied up in here.  Find out how long until you turn to smoke."  Crowley’s eyes go wide and his prick engorges visibly.  Aziraphale releases his hand slowly, tracing a line down the flaming scalp.  Crowley licks his lips as though he's tasting a symphony of desire.  "My prick inside you, evaporating you over long years."  _Big, big stacks of paperwork.  Principality, you weren't issued with a sex.  What is that hanging between your thighs?_

"Nothing but you inside me," Crowley is babbling now, and as always it's instructive.  "Destroy me with your cock, burn me up with your light -- please angel, please."

"Yes, destroy you and remake you quieter," he hears himself say, "if I thought you were _prima materia_ , rebuild you just for me, a little private garden.  How do you think you might convince me of your purity?"

"I…"  The demon's eyes screw up like he's lost everything, and his voice when it returns quivers like a green branch in the frigid north wind.  "I can't.  I don't.  I'm not…"

He swallows hard, and at first Aziraphale thinks it’s finally too much, but then Crowley is bending down to kiss his feet, the tips of his shoes, the tendon of his ankles, poetry itself bowed down before him, the humiliated line of his back undulating in devotion, glorious.  The demon looks up once, lips hanging open like a prayer.  And now he very carefully places his forehead on the ground.

The resulting burn is audible, and when Crowley looks up again, his skin is smoking and his golden eyes are wide with longing.

"None of your blessed mercy,” he begs.  “Break me, angel, hurt me, _please_.”

"You trust me," and the words flow out of his heart along with the rushing wind in his ears.  "Trust me to punish you, to eke out your penance."

"Yes!"  Crowley falls forward again, mouth to prick, as though he can kiss his punishment into being.

“Then why, in all these centuries, did you not allow me inside you?"

_Because I said you were going too fast, because I was afraid of what they would do to you.  But you taught me to torment you just as much as you taught me to lie for you._

Kissing up and down his shaft, the head, the testicles, delicate, hymnic.  There’s a carnal noise; it’s coming from Aziraphale’s mouth.

“Forgive me, forgive me!"  And he's repeating it over and over, prays without ceasing: make speed to save me, make haste to help me, forgive, forgive.

_But I am the one who needs your forgiveness,_ Aziraphale thinks.  _I'm the one who pushed you away -- for your own good, but still painfully, so painfully._

"This is your punishment," he tells his demon, tries to listen to himself.  "This is your salvation."

And he lifts the demon roughly, slams him face-first against the pillar, tugs at his waistband.  He’s chosen this spot because the carved stone has been recently reconsecrated after some restoration work.  Maybe too recently -- there's a hiss as Crowley's palms burn, and the demon blesses.  Aziraphale shifts him to lean on one forearm and pulls the other hand back to check it for burns.

"I'm fine," Crowley complains.

"Keep silence," Aziraphale snaps.  The palm gives off a little white smoke, and the skin is red, but the damage is minimal.  He presses Crowley's hand into his back and tugs one-handedly at his own trousers, pulling them properly down around his hips.

With a snap, his fingers are lubricated, slick drops asperging the nearby pew.  He drops his free hand to Crowley's hole, eliciting a gasp and an enthusiastic _yess_.  A little gentle pressure, and his thumb dips inside and circles.  The demon begins to unfold beneath him.  "Confess, demon.  Tell me what it is you want from me.”

“Fuck me,” Crowley begs.

Aziraphale adds a finger.  “No -- what you really want from me.”  He stretches the opening under his hand.  “Have wanted all these long years.”

“Your!”  Another gasp.  “Your light, the purity, the…  Wrap around you.  Be safe.  Tell me about...”

Crowley moans under him and then yips, and Aziraphale realises his face is rather too close to the consecrated pillar.  He shifts his weight back, letting go of a wrist to pull on the blazing red hair again.

_Tell him about?_ “About... Heaven?”

Aziraphale's lower hand slips in his surprise, brushing his sweet spot, and a loud cry echoes among the arches.

“No -- us!” he screams.

Aziraphale withdraws his thumb abruptly, clasping his free hand over Crowley's mouth.  They take a few breaths together, and the thin body under him trembes and whines.  He slips his thumb back inside and adds another finger, carefully this time, reaching up and in.

Crowley roils beneath him, barely avoiding grinding into the pillar, and Aziraphale quickly lubricates his prick and guides it inside, just as much too late as too soon.  He gasps at the welcome he receives, the insistent muscles drawing him deeper.

There’s another yell against his hand, but he has one arm free now and he hooks it against his demon's chest, balancing him on his prick, pulling him away from the pillar with both hands while shoving him roughly -- but safely -- forward with his hips.

They find a rhythm, Aziraphale thrusting while Crowley rolls his forearms against the pillar.  Aziraphale drops his hand from Crowley's mouth and uncovers the demon's hard prick.  Rewarded with a happy moan, he leans forward to kiss his neck.

"About us?"  He drops both hands to Crowley's waist, rams him with all his strength, pulls out almost to the tip, and rams him again, biting out his words to stop himself crying.  Hungry moans urge him on as one hand flails at the abandoned prick.  “Tell you what my plans are for you?  Maybe you’re afraid I’ll fuck Hell right out of you.”

“No, I trust you -- angel, I believe in you -- you’re _all_ I believe in, everything.”

Everything!  It’s more than he can imagine.  “Then tell me how much you want this.”

Aziraphale pulls his demon's head back and lands a bite in the crook of his neck.  Crowley's voice rises and falls like ocean tides, and Aziraphale is a corked bottle bobbing on his swells.

“Everything I’ve done -- every temptation, every wile -- every pulse under the light of the sun -- only for you -- take it all!”

He makes his thrusts punctuation as an orgasm begins to build beneath his conscious mind, smells sulphur and sandalwood.  "I'm taking you now,” he murmurs.  “Devour you like a sacrifice.  You should never have set foot in a church, but you’re here, around my prick, like I won’t burn you alive."  He looses a hand from the demon's waist and carefully sets first one and then the other hand flat on the pillar.

Crowley cries, and there’s a sizzle and a smell of burning flesh.  Aziraphale thrusts mercilessly and takes up demon’s prick again.

"You want me to break you, burn you, until I'm satisfied?"

"Yes!" Crowley chokes.  His hands are smoking.  Aziraphale glares at the interruption for a brief moment before pulling them back behind his demon’s back.  Crowley lands against the pillar on one shoulder with a surprised cry, bends his face desperately away from the consecrated stone.

"You offer yourself to me, to an agent of Heaven?"  He can’t tell anymore where Crowley’s tremors end and his waves of pleasure begin.

"There’s no Heaven, only our side, only you!"

In a moment of inspiration: “Pray!”

“Please – angel!  Angel of the Host… Angel… Eastern Gate… take my body.  Here, in front of everyone.  I don’t… deserve you, only you… you make me… everything.”  Crowley's voice is jagged, overflowing.  “Please, angel -- I’m _broken_ for you.”

He grabs hold of the red hair and begins to slowly force Crowley’s face to the pillar.  Although he’s deprived himself of a handle, Crowley continues to writhe around him, and he stifles a moan in his demon’s shoulder as his desire rages towards its crescendo.

“And what kind of love is it that you deserve from me?”

"I want you to burn me, please!" Crowley screams, a perfect victim.

He takes his lover violently now, like breaking a long siege, plunging ever further into the yielding depths.  Crowley's prick begins to sputter uncontrollably in his fingers.

The beautiful face is inches away from the pillar now, and he can feel the heat radiating from Crowley's skin.  "Angel!" he shrieks, and his helplessness, his trust, and yes, his pain and his fear, it's all pushing Aziraphale over the edge, drowning him in pure light.  He buries his scream and his teeth in Crowley's neck as he releases inside him.

As the tremors subside, he can see the golden eyes wide, the face pallid, close enough to the pillar to smoke, the prick taut and rippling under his hand.

Aziraphale spins him then, away from the pillar, holding him off the stone with one arm wrapped around his shoulders, keeps a gentle rhythm on the prick with the other.  His demon dances painfully under his fingers, lets his head fall forward into the crook of Aziraphale’s neck with a cry mingling relief and peaking tension.

“Are you ready to come for me, beloved?”

Crowley shakes, makes a noise that might be a yes into his shoulder.

" _Ite, missa est_ ," [3] he commands.

Crowley screams beautifully as he comes, all sex and myrrh and burned-out coals, onto his shirt and Aziraphale's waistcoat, a tidal pool of salt and trust.

As Crowley collapses onto his chest, Aziraphale gently lowers them both onto the cushion, careful not to let him touch floor or pillar or pew, sliding the demon up to straddle his lap, close enough to kiss him, his own spunk spilling onto his flaccid prick.  He lifts the burned hands and kisses them softly, banishing the mess and damage to the beloved flesh.  And then, to his surprise, there are sobs to soothe and tears to wipe away.

"'m sorry, I'm sorry, angel, forgive me," Crowley moans, and Aziraphale pulls him into a closer embrace, shushing him softly.

" _Ssh, ssh_ , you did nothing wrong, beloved, you only asked questions, that's all."

"Forgive," Crowley insists.

"Your penance is paid, your penance is paid, and I would do anything to have paid it for you.  _Forgiven, forgiven_ ," he whispers into Crowley's curls, and the two of them breathe together, hold each other, and he draws his demon down for a soft kiss.

A minute passes, an age, until Crowley lifts his head at last.  "You love me, angel?" 

Aziraphale brushes his lips against his demon's shining forehead.  "I love you -- I have always loved you -- until the end of all things -- I have never loved you more than at this moment."

If Crowley answers, it’s only by curling around him, face buried in Aziraphale's collar.

Later the door of the darkened chapel will open and sunlight will spill in, later the tourists will remember what it was they came to see, later an angel and a demon will lie together wrapped in pleasurable haze, later there will indeed be digestifs.  For now it’s enough to have heard that word, _love_ , in Crowley’s mouth and to know that somehow, despite the pain or through it or because of it, the demon loves him too.

 

 

_O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee,_

_Burne off my rusts, and my deformity,_

_Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace,_

_That thou may'st know mee, and I'll turne my face.  
_

_\--John Donne,_ Good Friday 1613.  Riding Westward _._

 

 

1 Aziraphale doesn't drive so much as sit in the driver's seat until he's where he wants to be.

2 Sandalphon particularly despises languages lacking a dual number.

3 "Go, you are dismissed," part of the dismissal of the Latin mass.  (And they said seminary was a waste of time.)


	5. Chapter 5

And he thinks they've quite gotten away with it.

For about thirty hours.

Just before noon the next day, his shop bell rings, and even before he turns around Sandalphon is standing at the counter with an unpleasant smile on his broad face.

"I wanted," Sandalphon says very loudly, "to thank you for the pornography you procured for us."  Every syllable drips with performative delight.  A couple of customers look displeased and head for the door; rather more start looking around, as if searching for the missing section.

"Our mates at the office really enjoyed your pornography," Sandalphon continues with poorly disguised glee.  Aziraphale becomes aware of a horrific knot in his stomach. 

"And Aziraphale," Sandalphon leans forward across the counter, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.  "Don't do it again."

It takes weeks to remove the miraculous pornography annex from the bookshop.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your lovely comments and kudos! I'm thrilled so many people enjoyed it. I hope the last chapter was worth your time.
> 
> For anyone who's interested in this kind of thing, I've worked off a few inspirations.
> 
> This first, as mentioned, is John Donne's Kinky for Jesus poetry, particularly Good Friday 1613. Riding Westward and Batter My Heart, Three Person'd God.
> 
> The second is a scene in Dante's Inferno, Canto IX, in which an angel appears in Hell to let Dante and Virgil into the city of Dis. Dorothy Sayers' note (yes, I went there) on line 88 ("What scorn was in his look!") is as follows: "In Hell, God's power is experienced only as judgment, alien and terrible." I imagine Crowley having the same response to some of Aziraphale's more Heavenly pronouncements. 
> 
> The third is Goethe's Faust, Part Two, Act V, Scene 22, in which sexy cherubs distract Mephistopheles with erotic love in order to retrieve the soul of Faust. Mephistopheles' infatuation is brief but still reminds me of Crowley's devotion to his angel.


End file.
